Hollywood
Dev Patel joins Oscar as new member
MUMBAI: After adding 271 people last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sent out invitations to more than 300 people this year to be their new members, including actors Eddie Redmayne, Emma Stone and Dev Patel. The new invitees were from Oscar winners, nominees, and other notable names in the industry.
Eddie Redmayne’s role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything not only won him the best actor award, but also saved him a member’s place in the Academy. Others include Emma Stone, who was nominated for best supporting actress for her performance in Birdman; rapper Common who grabbed best original song for his Selma soundtrack; and Dev Patel, whose film Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars in 2009.
In the music category, the All Of Me singer, John Legend who collaborated with Common in the Selma theme song Glory has also made it to the list of invitees. Another new member in the music branch is Nine Inch Nails’ vocalist Trent Reznor who scored David Fincher’s Gone Girl.
Other actors in the new list include Elizabeth Banks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Tom Hardy, Kevin Hart, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Chris Pine, Daniel Radcliffe, Jason Segel and JK Simmons.
The new directors who join this year’s invitees are James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy), Justin Lin (Fast and Furious 6), Edgar Wright (The World’s End), and Joe Wright (Anna Karenina).
Hollywood
Paramount Skydance posts $8.15bn in Q4, warns of ‘below Wall Street estimates’ Q1 growth
Linear TV drag offsets subscriber gains and price rises at Paramount plus
LOS ANGELES: Paramount Skydance forecast first-quarter revenue below Wall Street expectations, blaming a continued slide in its legacy television business even as it predicts robust growth in streaming this year.
The David Ellison-led group said revenue for the first three months of 2026 would land between $7.15 billion and $7.35 billion, narrowly missing analysts’ expectations of $7.36 billion, according to data from LSEG. The outlook underscores the structural strain facing traditional broadcasters as audiences abandon pay TV for on-demand platforms.
Paramount Skydance struck a confident note on streaming, pointing to subscriber growth and price increases at Paramount plus as key drivers. The platform ended 2025 with 78.9 million paid subscribers and expects further gains this year, helped by the addition of the Ultimate Fighting Championship to its exclusive lineup.
The company’s fourth-quarter results reflected the same fault lines. Total revenue edged up to $8.15 billion, just above estimates, while its TV Media unit posted a 5 per cent fall to $4.71 billion, hit by weaker advertising and declining affiliate fees. Paramount expects further softness in the segment this year, broadly in line with industry-wide pay-TV headwinds.
By contrast, filmed entertainment revenue jumped 16 per cent, largely due to the consolidation of Skydance licensing into the group’s accounts.
Investor attention, however, remains fixed on the corporate chessboard. Paramount Skydance described its bid for Warner Bros Discovery as an “accelerant” to its long-term strategy, though it declined to comment further on the talks.
Warner Bros Discovery’s board is weighing whether Paramount’s revised $31-a-share offer for the entire company tops a competing $27.75-a-share proposal from Netflix for its streaming and studio assets. The contest centres on prized film and television libraries housing franchises such as Harry Potter and Game of Thrones.
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